Qualla: Godmanchester https://qualla.com/godmanchester en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Godmanchester https://qualla.com/godmanchester Godmanchester: Introduction https://qualla.com/godmanchester/ Photo credit Public domain. Locals used to call it Gumster - and a stubborn few still do. The pronunciation has officially shifted to GOD-man-chester over the past century, but the older sound carries the ghost of how this town has actually been spoken about for nine hundred years. The Domesday Book of 1086 wrote it Godmundcestre, and the scribes who followed gave it a wandering spelling that would shame a modern auto-correct: Gutmuncetre, Gormancestre, Gurminchestre, Gummecestre, on and on, like a chorus losing the tune. Beneath all those spellings sits the same place: a riverside town one mile south of Huntingdon, separated by the floodplain of the Great Ouse, occupied without interruption for more than two thousand years.

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/gcrc-godmanchester-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Godmanchester: A Temple to the Rising Sun https://qualla.com/godmanchester/ Photo credit Geographer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The headline find sits buried under what is now a gravel quarry on the town's edge. A neolithic temple of 6.3 hectares, carbon-dated to between 3685 and 3365 BCE, aligned precisely to catch the sunrise of Beltane - the Celtic May festival. Archaeologists have called it one of anc...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/gcrc-godmanchester-a-temple-to-the-rising-sun.mp3 0:06 2 full Godmanchester: Charters, Crowns, and Cromwells https://qualla.com/godmanchester/ Photo credit Public domain. King John, who would soon be forced into Magna Carta, granted Godmanchester its first town charter in 1212. King James I granted a second one in 1604. By the time Sir Oliver Cromwell - uncle to the future Lord Protector and once one of the great hosts of James I at nearby Hinchin...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/gcrc-godmanchester-charters-crowns-and-cromwells.mp3 0:06 3 full Godmanchester: The Bridge Made of Stories https://qualla.com/godmanchester/ Photo credit Public domain. Ask anyone in Godmanchester about the Chinese Bridge and you will likely hear that it was built without a single nail. It is a beautiful claim. It is also untrue - though gloriously persistent. The same myth surrounds the Mathematical Bridge at Queens' College, Cambridge, twenty ...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/gcrc-godmanchester-the-bridge-made-of-stories.mp3 0:06 4 full Godmanchester: The Town the Motorways Pass By https://qualla.com/godmanchester/ Photo credit Geographer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The story of Godmanchester since the Romans has been the story of the road. Ermine Street, the great London-to-York artery, ran straight through here, and the town's prosperity rose and fell with traffic. In 2019 the six-lane A14 opened with a half-mile viaduct vaulting over the ...

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]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/r/c/godmanchester-wp/gcrc-godmanchester-the-town-the-motorways-pass-by.mp3 0:06 5 full